Poll: Which Was Bigger -- Nolan's 'Dark Knight' or Burton's 'Batman'?
Filed under: Action, Fandom, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels, Polls
So last night I was twiddling my thumbs, watching a re-run of Design Star (shut up) and I suddenly remembered that our friends from Slashfilm had Kevin Smith as a guest on their podcast. Since we're in no way above pimping out something pretty awesome on another site, I'll let you know now that I truly enjoyed listening to Smith talk about how much he loved The Dark Knight -- and, essentially, just hearing these guys all geek out over the flick. (I think they just posted the full podcast for those of you who missed it.)
So anyway, at one point they were talking about the intense marketing for The Dark Knight, and how the hype had reached a ridiculous level just prior to the flick arriving in theaters. But then Smith brought up the point that the hype surrounding The Dark Knight was not even close to the hype surrounding Tim Burton's Batman back in 1989. I was still kinda young (12), but I do remember Batman being the first giant summer movie. And Kevin made a good point in that with The Dark Knight, most of the buzz was online and other folks didn't really know much about it until we got closer to release -- whereas Burton's Batman was everywhere. Of the things I remember, the Bat symbol was on everything -- I vaguely recall walking through the mall in Staten Island and seeing it on walls, on stands and, at one point, in cardboard box form all piled up in the center of the Macy's wing. The hype was out of control for that flick.
So, is Kevin Smith correct in saying the hype for Burton's Batman far exceeded the hype leading up to The Dark Knight? Sound off below ...
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-22-2008 @ 8:25PM
Matt Lemieux said...
Where's the "I'm not old enough to remember" option? Being as I was all of 3 when the first Batman came out. :-D
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7-23-2008 @ 3:51PM
Mikull@gmail.com said...
I was old enough to remember, and if you think it's the Dark Knight maybe you slept through that summer.
Bat-mania was NUTS that year. It was a main news feature for weeks. Mind you - it was the first Batman movie people had really seen, relatively speaking, since Adam West. Comic fans to parents came out in droves.... it was marketed to every age group, and plastered on everything from shoes to shirts; toys to dolls; slurpee cups to NYC billboards; Prince on MTV, the radio, and yes!~ bat signals at the barber shop!! LOL..
I was impressed by the viral campaigns for the Dark Knight, but I had to look for them. I think the more mature nature of the Dark Knight toned down the campaign - and there was this egg shell feeling with Heath Ledger's death -- not to mention this almost didn't need promotion.
And don't get me wrong, Nolan won my heart, and Burton's work now feels more nostalgic, dated, and sometimes just silly... but there's no question here...
But there is no question here. Tim Burton's Batman was bigger, hands down.
7-22-2008 @ 8:35PM
eugene said...
There was much more studio generated hype for the Burton's Batman but there was much more hype for DK in general, mainly due to Heath's death, imo.
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7-22-2008 @ 8:50PM
Cincinnati Mike said...
I was 22 when Burton's original came out. I can tell you the ANTICIPATION was through the roof. I remember vividly seeing the trailer on TV for the first time. The standout image was the Batwing silhouetted against the moon, forming the Batsignal. Cold chills, man.
But Hype? Noting comes close to what we've seen this year. That crazy bullshit with the bowling alley lockers? Good lord.
But they came so close to overdoing it. About two weeks ago my wife alerted me to the "DK First Look" coming on HBO. I said, I can't take one more image, one more poster, one more clip... just release the damn thing!
So,my vote is for Dark Knight.
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7-22-2008 @ 9:05PM
GL said...
The access to information and coverage of movies such as The Dark Knight is much greater than in 1989 even for a huge blockbuster such as Batman. You don't need the internet to see the amount of celebrity and movie coverage that goes on every day as compared with 1989.
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7-22-2008 @ 9:28PM
Ray said...
You're right; there was a bigger traditional ad push for Burton's Batman. But times have changed, and The Dark Knight has been getting promoted or over a year. TDK didn't need to be plastered all over the mall; it was everywhere else already.
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7-22-2008 @ 10:21PM
YouFaceTheTick said...
1989's Batman was EVERYWHERE. Idiots had the batman logo on their cars. The merchandising was insane. There's really no comparison as the Dark Knight is around but not ubiquitous.
Not even close. I can't recall even seeing a commercial for The Dark Knight. People did not applaud The Dark Knight teasers and trailers the way 89's Batman got nothing but hype, hype, hype. The media cover 89's Batman up to opening day and went on and on about it. There's not really been much media coverage of this new movie beyond what's in normal entertainment sections. TDK, AFAIK didn't get onto the cover of every magazine on earth like Burton's Batman.
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7-22-2008 @ 11:30PM
Mr. R said...
Looking back, I remember going through several McDonalds finding the batman special edition cup. Back in 89 it was much more difficult to quench your thirst for images and photos. Batman back then was huge. Today TDK was amazingly huge considering you could get a good 20 minutes of movie amongst a thousand trailes and web pictures.
I think TDK is bigger in the sense that it's something like the 6th. movie, it's a sequel to a story people have seen already. It was exposed to major failure, not just by hype but by a million web users who were taken to the extreme of viral attacks and had this movie not rocked in the high sense of the matter, it would have tanked. So under this conditions, TDK is bigger, it blew minds up being a sequel and that is something to admire.
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7-22-2008 @ 11:45PM
Kevin Crossman said...
When the Dark Knight generated both the biggest box office hit as well as the summer's most popular hit single, THEN it will be bigger than Burton's Batman.
Remember, that Prince soundtrack was awfully popular.
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7-23-2008 @ 10:48AM
David said...
Well, after Burton 'The Butcher" destroyed Batman, Planet of the Apes, and Willy Wonka, he said he would rather "jump off a building" than make a squeal to any one of those films.
Case-in-point: ALL of Butons "movies" suck and he know it well!
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7-29-2008 @ 10:28AM
Adrian said...
I love Edward Scissorhands :)
7-23-2008 @ 9:51AM
Adam P said...
Batman (1989)-- there was batman EVERYTHING. There was a Batman bust filled with gum that became a piggy bank. There were t-shirts that were too big for me, so when I wore it, you couldn't see the sides of the bat-logo. There were McDonalds toys -- McD's!!!! And the interweb as we know it did not exist. Otherwise Prodigy probably would have changed all of their logos in a mandatory upgrade to be alternating Batman/Logos/Release dates.
It was everywhere. In fact, I got two copies of the VHS for Christmas (best Christmas).
I don't see signs for this one -- I see lines. It's a better kind of hype. It's that soft pressure of "Everyone else is seeing this, I must be an idiot." Oh, and if you don't see it, you might be, so see it. That's not soft pressure.
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7-23-2008 @ 9:58AM
Eric Kohn said...
Actually, the two top-grossing films in 1989 were Batman and the third Indiana Jones. Which sounds a lot like...
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7-23-2008 @ 10:45AM
kevjohn said...
I was in high school when the first Batman came out. Dude, there were people, and plenty of them, walking around with the Batman logo shaved into their hair! I myself had a Batcomb, Bathat, Batshirt, and some Batflipflops. I also owned both Batsoundtracks, Prince's and Elfman's. TDK's advertisement, mainly composed of fanboy-focused viral stuff, doesn't even come close. They opened up a few websites, and had a few DK-treasure hunts. And you can now get a Batpizza from Dominos. And I'm sure there's plenty of Battoys at uhh, BatWalmart. But it's a totally different type of affair with the new film than it was with the old one.
For what it's worth though, Kim Basinger is still my favorite Batsqueeze. To look at at least.
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7-23-2008 @ 1:10PM
Alex said...
Yeah, between the HUGE merchandising campaign, the Prince soundtrack (don't pretend you don't have a copy of it somewhere), and the awesome trailer, 1989's Batman wins the hype contest. I was the same age as Erik back then and I remember how nuts people were over Burton's movie. It was all we talked about that summer. Last Crusade, Ghostbusters II and Lethal Weapon 2 all came out the same summer but Batman was the one we all went crazy about.
Except that it didn't quite blow me away the first time I saw it. Not like Dark Knight did.
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7-23-2008 @ 2:34PM
LiqwidZero said...
The Dark Knight, hands down.
But I don't think anyone could replace Danny DeVito as Penguin. His portrayal of Penguin was fantastic.
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7-29-2008 @ 10:26AM
Adrian said...
The Penguin wasn't on Batman... it was on Batman Returns which hadn't the merchandise nor the hype the first Batman had (1989's)
7-23-2008 @ 3:11PM
Holyfield said...
Check out the time capzle me and my friends built at capzles.com. Basically we took everything we could find about Batman online and put it into one linear timeline.
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7-25-2008 @ 1:11AM
Keith said...
I worked at a small town radio station back in 89, and I even had an interview with the gut who wrote the original BATMAN theme...it was everywhere!!! T-shirts, mugs, everyting that could be branded was.
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7-29-2008 @ 10:26AM
Adrian said...
If the question is, was the movie bigger in commercial advertising, it's obvious it was. Internet was nothing back then but everything else was Batman-related.
The merchandising campaing was brutal, the biggest I've ever seen . Too many people was waiting a Superhero adaptation of Batman and the news were plastered with it.
But hype is a different thing imo, it's the expectation that grows and hype has improved a lot with internet since It's a two way communication system you can receive and spread, it wasn't so easy back in Burton's day.
So if the movie was better or not, time will tell but for sure the movie was "bigger" in a matter of merchandise (also remember it was the first Batman movie, studio-wise).
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